


Out With Aunt Mildred

by pixiealtaira



Series: Kurtoberfest 2016 [4]
Category: Glee
Genre: Gen, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:34:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23680144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pixiealtaira/pseuds/pixiealtaira
Summary: Kurtoberfest  Prompt 4: Haunted/Cursed ObjectAunt Mildred doesn't listen.
Series: Kurtoberfest 2016 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1694098
Comments: 1
Kudos: 17





	Out With Aunt Mildred

After Kurt’s mother died, Aunt Mildred came into the house with a mission. That mission was to rid the house of the influence of ‘That Woman’, as she called Kurt’s mom and to install ‘manly order’ to the Hummel household, thus making Kurt less ‘unnatural’. Kurt spent a week running behind her taking and hiding tidbits from his mother’s past and mementos from being together with her where ever he could squirrel them away and his dad spent a week removing items that might be ‘manly’ but were not appropriate. 

Everything came to a halt when Mildred hit the mantle in the living room.

Above the fireplace was a mirror. Kurt had never seen a picture of the house without it. It was there in the first picture of his dad and mom in the house. It remained when they completely redid the living room. It never shook or moved at all, not even when Kurt turned the music on as loud as he could and he watched the glasses on the coffee table jump and watched the photos hanging on the wall jiggle until they were crooked.

It was a very pretty mirror, but it wasn’t a mirror that made much sense. It had a metal frame around the glass, with entwined ivy and flowers and shapes mom called fleur-de-lie. The frame was old and tarnished looking, but his mom had said that she thought it was meant to be that way. You couldn’t see into it very well, it was too high. Kurt could only see his reflection in it if he stood on the couch and jumped (or stood on the back of the couch and got yelled at even louder than when he jumped). It only showed the tops of people’s heads for the most part. But something about it made rainbows throughout the room when the sun hit it right and Kurt’s mom always lovingly dusted it every week.

The mantle was funny anyway, so the mirror matched. You always announced when you were placing things on the mantle. Kurt asked why once. His mum shrugged and just said that was how things worked. His dad followed suit.

And somethings were just always on the mantle.

The tin of long matches always sat beside the brass candlestick with the little dish and handle attached. The little china dog and cat always stood on either side. Kurt asked where they came from. He knew the little brass shoe had been his great grand-father’s and the music box had been his grandmother’s and had come all the way from Switzerland. But his mom said she didn’t know where the dog and cat were from, and his dad just shivered and said not to ask again. Kurt knew to ask to put things on the mantle though. If you asked, they stayed…if you didn’t you tended to find your things in the fireplace. Toys could stay for a little while most of the time, pine cones and nests a bit longer. Items were rarely harmed when displaced. Even glass things just ended up whole…in the fireplace...like the little troll doll mom tried last Christmas. (Kurt agreed with the mantle...that thing was creepy.) Sometimes things stayed a long time, like the lantern they found that looked like it belonged on the side of Cinderella’s coach and the shells his mom’s friend had sent from Hawaii.

Somethings did not ever sit on the mantle. His dad bought a shot glass from Maine once, and put it on the mantle. He even asked. It did not stay there. It was smashed on the hearth the next morning after everyone was in bed. Every wineglass, shot glass, old wine bottle, old beer bottle…anything like that that was placed on the mantle ended up smashed.

Aunt Mildred didn’t know that and Kurt’s dad was at the shop and not at the house to tell her. Kurt tried. He really did. Aunt Mildred didn’t listen to him, though. She never did.

The first thing she did was remove the little dog and cat. She put them into the box to take to the trash, not even the box to take to goodwill. Kurt took them out and hid them in the piano bench (he’d already taken out all the sheet music and music books and hid those between his mattresses). Then she removed the candle holder and broke the candle that had been in it. She put it on a bookshelf but Kurt figured since it hadn’t gone to a box he didn’t need to rescue it yet. She scoffed at the matches, but left those there. Kurt had already hidden the lantern, because he’d had to rescue all the other lanterns in the kitchen and dining room (they were hiding in the garage in the camping gear). He had been too late to rescue his pine cones and he did not know what happened to the shells.

Then she started setting out items on the mantle. Beer mugs from different sports teams, but none of what he thought were his dad’s favorites went on the mantles first. Kurt snorted. His dad wouldn’t even drink beer from a mug anyway! He only liked it from bottles or cans and he only drank of Fridays when he didn’t have to work the next morning or on Saturday nights at guys’ nights. Then Aunt Mildred pulled out the little shot glasses. These were even sillier, in Kurt’s view. He figured she must have bought them on her way to see them, because they had things like Ohio and Michigan and Toledo written on the sides of them. Then she started on even sillier items. She placed a fancy box of golf spike thingies and a green golf ball on the mantle and a dirty baseball with writing all over it and icky antlers and a dead duck and bullets. His dad kept his bullets locked in the drawer of the gun safe like a responsible adult and he didn’t think his dad had ever golfed in his life (he made fun of people who went golfing)…other than put-put. They went put-putting three times a summer. She put knifes up there, and some weren’t even in sheathes. And then she started piling on whiskey and rum and other alcohol bottles and none were even that old…and a few still had stuff in them!

“Um….Aunt Mildred, you really should remove the bottles and glasses. And you should probably ask before you put those dead things up there. The mantle doesn’t like things like that,” Kurt said.

“The mantle? What foolishness are you spouting off now, boy?” Aunt Mildred glared at him. “Do you know where a step ladder is that is tall enough to get the stupid mirror down? I need to see if the fish or deer head looks better.”

“The mirror doesn’t come down.” Kurt said.

“Don’t be stupid, of course it does.”

Kurt shook his head. “It doesn’t. And you really need to remove the alcohol stuff from the mantle.”

“Boy, stop being a sissy or go to your room. Just because I removed all your sissy stuff doesn’t mean you can ruin this room for you dad now. He’ll be right pleased with this new look and come to his senses.”

“But…”

“Go, you stupid child. Or you will be the next thing I correct in this household.”

Kurt left quickly but he didn’t go to his room. He went and sat on the staircase and just watched.

He could see the top of Aunt Mildred’s head in the mirror…but he could also see the golden bun. The golden bun didn’t ever seem to actually belong to anyone and you could never see any more than the bun part of the hairdo…but it showed up sometimes. It seemed to like when they had fires, and when they had seasonal smelly candles, and when they sang songs and danced around the room. It usually only was there when he and his mom had been in the room, he’d never seen it when his dad was there and anyone else.

Kurt watched as his Aunt tried to move the couch closer so she could stand on it to reach the mirror. The couch was heavy. His dad always invited Jake and Lou over when they had to move the couch. She was looking at the couch though and not the mantle.

The Toledo shot glass was first. It just…slipped off the mantle and shattered on the hearth.

“Boy, I told you to go. I will be beating that hind end of yours for this…” His aunt yelled until she looked up and couldn’t see him.

The baseball rolled off the mantle and hit the hearth and then the floor, rolling until it stopped at Aunt Mildred’s feet.

Aunt Mildred looked around till she caught sight of Kurt. She came stomping towards him. She grabbed his arm and started to yell.

“I swear, I don’t know how you managed but you need to stop throwing things at the mantle to knock items off it. It is making me very upse…”

The crashes were loud and made Kurt jump. One by one every glass item dropped from the mantle. Kurt watched in horror as Aunt Mildred squeezed his arm tighter and tighter at each crash.

“Stop it!” She yelled at Kurt.

“I’m not doing anything!” Kurt said.

Aunt Mildred started to shake him. “I said stop it, boy! Stop it!”

“I’m not doing it! You’re hurting me!” Kurt cried.

The golf ball hit the wall by Aunt Mildred’s head. She turned and looked back at the fireplace.

The mirror was cloudy, like when it was foggy outside. Lots of things seemed to be floating inside it. The box of golf spikes started to slide towards the edge of the mantle.

Aunt Mildred screamed and let go of Kurt. She kept screaming as she ran out the door. Kurt watched as she left. Kurt heard her car start and screech out of the driveway.

Kurt looked back at the mirror. Everything was normal, except glass covered the hearth.

“I think it wouldn’t be good if the bullets got dumped and I’m pretty certain I shouldn’t be handling them.” Kurt said aloud. “I’d come remove the tees and the rest of what doesn’t belong but I don’t think I should be near that much shattered glass.”

The box of tees slid back to where they weren’t in danger of falling off the mantle anymore.

Kurt leaned against the banister and hummed to himself. It wasn’t even a half hour later before his dad came running into the house.

“Kurt, what did you do to your aunt?” His dad yelled.

“I didn’t do anything.”

“Mildred came into the shop screaming. She said you threw glass bottles at her.”

Kurt gave his dad one of his ‘don’t be stupid’ looks. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Then why did she come tearing into the shop like something was after her?” Burt asked.

Kurt pointed to the living room.

“Oh. Ooohhh.” Burt said.

Kurt nodded. “I told her not to do anything. She didn’t listen. You should probably take at least the bullets off the mantle….and the knives.”

“Bullets?” Burt squeaked.

“And knives.” Kurt added.

Burt went over to the mantle and removed the knives and bullets. He looked at the bullets. “Does this mean she’s put a gun to go with them somewhere in the house just lying about?” he asked. “Who does that?”

“Someone raising a serial killer.” Kurt said.

“Kurt…” his dad warned.

“What? Wayne tortures animals, plays with fire and wets the bed.” Kurt said.

“Where did you hear that from?” Burt asked, as he walked into the kitchen to grab the dustpan and the hand broom.

“That Wayne tortures animals, plays with fire and wets the bed? I learn that all first hand when you made me stay at Aunt Mildred’s in February. He took Janice Martin’s goldfish out of the bowl and watched as it died, laughing the whole time, and then he tore it apart fin by fin and scale by scale. She was crying the whole time and Wally held her down so she couldn’t tell her mom. Willy had me pinned so I couldn’t tell either. And then they blamed it on Mac, since he couldn’t tell anyone otherwise, so now Mac can’t be over at the Martin’s house. Wayne said he’d kill us if we told, and since he’d just killed a goldfish, we figured we’d better not take chances.”

Burt looked at Kurt a bit horrified. “Ok. I actually meant where you heard about that being linked to serial killers, but thank you for telling me that.”

“Oh, I heard that on a program on TV that Aunt Mildred was watching.”

“Anything else I should know?” Burt asked as he started to sweep up the shattered glass.

“Willy is a sex maniac. He said so. He said he and his girlfriend have been having sex with each other since he was 10 and that he has sex with her sisters and cousins as well. His girlfriend is a year younger than him and calls him by his full first name because she says Wilfred sounds sexy. Willy says big boobs are best, because he can bite them better.”

Burt stopped and looked at Kurt again.

“So, what’s Waldo up to then?” Burt asked.

Kurt shrugged. “Wally just does what Willy says and tries to avoid Wayne. His mother says Wally needs more God in his Life, though, because he isn’t manly enough. I asked why? She says she doesn’t get enough calls from the school about him so he must be a wuss.”

“Maybe you won’t be vacationing with Mildred this summer. Go get the vacuum and we’ll get the rest of the glass removed, then we’ll see about getting this mantle set right.”

Kurt got the vacuum and they cleaned up the area. Kurt brought out the dog and cat, Burt replaced the candle stick, and they removed everything else from the top and then asked nicely if they could replace items…his dad actually did like the icky antlers and the baseball.

Kurt looked at the mantle as his dad called the shop to talk to Mildred, who was refusing to come back to the house where his son had abused her so badly.

“We’re going to have to replace the candle, Dad. Aunt Mildred broke it. Do you think we could put pine cones back up there?”

His dad came back out and looked at the mantle. “Probably, they’d look nice with the antlers. We could also see if we could find some ducks, not a stuffed one like Mildred brought over but wooden decoys might be nice.”

Kurt nodded. “Maybe some pictures? Like a picture of us and one of mom?” Kurt asked.

“I think some pictures would be nice.”

They talked about other ideas throughout the evening, until it was bedtime.

When Kurt got up the next morning, he bounced down the stairs so he could eat breakfast with his dad before his dad went to work. His dad had explained that Jake’s wife Sofia was going to watch him for a few says until his dad could find him something to do.

On the mantle was the candle stick, with new candle in it that looked like it had been burned for a few hours. Beside it was the tin of matches and on either side of the two was the dog and cat. Lying beside the dog was the missing seashells that Kurt hadn’t seen for days and on the side of the cat were a few pinecones and a nest that Kurt had been certain his Aunt had destroyed. By the side of those was a spot just big enough for two framed photos. Kurt smiled and climbed up the stairs far enough that he could almost see into the mirror if he leaned over the banister far. He just lean and stretched his arm out and waved to the mirror, then went off to eat his breakfast.


End file.
